Insider Media Limited

Planning secretary Bob Neill has said he wants to give cities such as Birmingham power over their own destiny in planning and development. Speaking at a Conservative Party conference fringe event in the city, Neill said he “is keen to see Birmingham empowered more”.

He said: “We have sucked the initiative and individualism out of great cities. This government is about giving back that initiative. A London-centric economy is not sustainable over the long term.

“It involves a degree of spatial rebalancing to shift back wealth and power to other major UK cities.

“The localism agenda is crucial to the coalition government.”

Neill revealed that a Localism Bill, due to be introduced at the end of November, will attempt to give local authorities greater power in areas such as governance, finance and planning.

“We are passing power back to the local authorities via things like accelerated development zones. It is about giving back flexibility to local authorities,” he said.

“It’s crazy at the moment that local authorities keep having to check with their lawyers to see if they have the power to do things.

“We want to give them the power of general competence which will enable local authorities to work in all manner of ways. It will encourage entrepreneurism.”

Neill also revealed that the government is initiating a new homes bonus, a fiscal incentive for local authorities to build homes.

And he said that Section 106 agreements, which get developers of major projects to put in surrounding infrastructure, will be retained for things such as remediation but said that everything else might be done on a tariff in future.

“This will give the developer certainty. Local authorities will have discretion in how it is applied locally. That’s a freeing up of power,” he said.

And he said the planning system is to be changed more generally.

“It is desperately expensive and long-winded and the big issues only get resolved on appeal,” he said.

“We want the day to day stuff to move through more quickly.”

Asked by Insider for his thoughts on Birmingham’s Big City Plan, Neill said: “Masterplanning is important. It pulls everything together and is exactly what we should be doing.”

At another fringe event local government secretary Eric Pickles said he is offering “home rule for Birmingham” if voters choose an elected mayor to run the city.

Pickles said Birmingham City Council would be able to break free from government control and enjoy a substantial increase in its powers and funding if a referendum produced a vote in favour of a London-style mayor.